


I Will Be You (In the Darkness)

by incapricious



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-13
Updated: 2011-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-23 17:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incapricious/pseuds/incapricious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for thegameison_sh cycle 3, round 3, where the challenge was based on poetry.</p>
    </blockquote>





	I Will Be You (In the Darkness)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for thegameison_sh cycle 3, round 3, where the challenge was based on poetry.

::

"It's not fair."

"Aye, it's not, Jimmy. But it was her time. She's with God now."

Jimmy didn't believe that for a minute.

::

After the fifth fight in as many weeks, he was sent to see a therapist with bad breath and ugly yellow shoes.

"You're angry," she said.

"I'm not."

"You broke Simon McIntyre's nose."

"So?"

She looked him right in the eye, as if she wasn't afraid of him. "It's normal to be sad. You miss your mother."

Jimmy shrugged and bowed his head to cover up his trembling. He didn't look up again until he had pushed everything back down. "She's with God now," he said, but once the words were out, so was everything else: all the pain, all the rage, all the sadness that he'd kept locked away so it wouldn't devour him whole.

He wept like a pathetic little girl while the therapist patted his back, as though that would help at all.

::

The next week, the therapist's breath was just as bad, and her shoes were brown and even uglier. She handed him a book and said, "I want you to write letters to your mother. Every day."

"That's stupid." He flipped through the pages of off-white blankness. "She won't even be able to read them."

"How do you know?"

 _Because she's in a wooden box being eaten by worms,_ he thought. _Her skin is falling off, even from her hands, the ones she used to hold me._

"It doesn't matter. I know she won't be able to answer me," he said. "So what's the point?"

The therapist looked thoughtful. "You could write her replies, too."

The idea exploded into Jimmy's mind. He could do it. He knew exactly what she would say to him. "I suppose," he said, wanting to bolt out the door.

"Will you show me them when you're here next week?"

Jimmy nodded, but knew he wasn't coming back.

::

Dear Mum,

Why did you leave me? I miss you.

-Jimmy

 

Dear Jimmy,

I miss you too. I'm sorry I left you. I should not have done. You are such a good boy. You are the best boy a mother could ever have asked for.

Love, Mum

::

Dear Mum,

I keep getting into fights at school, but it's not my fault. Please don't be angry with me.

-Jimmy

 

Dear Jimmy,

I'm glad you hit those other boys. They deserved it. I could never be angry with you. You are my perfect son.

Love, Mum

::

They forced him to go back to the therapist five months later, after Nancy Lane fell down the stairs and broke both her arms. She said Jimmy tripped her. He said she stumbled over her own feet.

Nancy shouldn't have tried to steal his book. Those were his mother's words to him. Now he would have to leave it at home, and wouldn't be able to read it during the day, at school, when sometimes he forgot that he was right and everyone else was wrong.

"Have you been writing the letters?" the therapist asked, as though their last meeting was only yesterday. Her shoes were yellow again.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Your breath smells like a dead cat."

Her mouth pressed into a straight line. "Tell me what your mother was like."

 _She was perfect. She loved me. But then she was gone. If she had loved me enough, she would have lived._

"I don't remember," he said.

::

Dear Mum,

What's it like to die?

-Jimmy

 

Dear Jimmy,

It hurts. A lot. And then there is nothing.

Love, Mum

::

"I was not!" Jimmy said, clenching his hands at his sides.

"Yes, you were. You were crying," the boy said. He was older than Jimmy, and much taller; he was taller than his friends, too. His trainers were clean and white. "You're a little baby." He laughed, showing all his teeth. "Run along home to your mother! Oh right, you can't!" he said, laughing even more.

::

Dear Mum,

I'm so angry. I want him to die. He called me a baby.

-Jimmy

 

Dear Jim,

You are almost twelve. I should call you "Jim" from now on. "Jimmy" is a little boy's name.

Carl Powers is very bad. He should not have laughed at you. No one should ever laugh at you. You know what you have to do. I love you.

Mum

::

The therapist was next. He kept her shoes, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the following lines in the poem "Postscript" by Joan Margarit, as translated by Anna Crowe:
> 
>  _You will always be with me if I can write.  
>  You will be me and I will love you in the darkness_
> 
> The actual poem is lovely... I'm not sure how I ended up turning it into this. XD


End file.
